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RCW 64.40.020

Applicant for permit—Actions for damages from governmental actions.

Applied in 80 court decisions — leading case 109 Wash. 2d 621 - Orion Corporation v. State (1987)

Most recently applied in 194 Wash. 2d 132 - Church of the Divine Earth v. City of Tacoma (September 2019)

1982 c 232 s 2.

How often courts cite this section

1985199020002010201990
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Owners of a property interest who have filed an application for a permit have an action for damages to obtain relief from acts of an agency which are arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, or exceed lawful authority, or relief from a failure to act within time limits established by law: PROVIDED, That the action is unlawful or in excess of lawful authority only if the final decision of the agency was made with knowledge of its unlawfulness or that it was in excess of lawful authority, or it should reasonably have been known to have been unlawful or in excess of lawful authority.

(2) The prevailing party in an action brought pursuant to this chapter may be entitled to reasonable costs and attorney's fees.

(3) No cause of action is created for relief from unintentional procedural or ministerial errors of an agency.

(4) Invalidation of any regulation in effect prior to the date an application for a permit is filed with the agency shall not constitute a cause of action under this chapter.

Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.